President Boyd K. Packer
“I sat on a plane next to a professed atheist who pressed
his disbelief in God so urgently that I bore my testimony to him. ‘You are
wrong,’ I said, ‘there is a God. I know He lives!’
“He protested, ‘You don’t know. Nobody knows that! You can’t
know it!’ When I would not yield, the atheist, who was an attorney, asked
perhaps the ultimate question on the subject of testimony. ‘All right,’ he said
in a sneering, condescending way, ‘you say you know. Tell me how you know.’
“When I attempted to answer, even though I held advanced
academic degrees, I was helpless to communicate. …
“When I used the words Spirit and witness, the atheist
responded, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’ The words prayer,
discernment, and faith, were equally meaningless to him. ‘You see,’ he said,
‘you don’t really know. If you did, you would be able to tell me how you know.’
President Packer felt inspired to ask the man sitting next
to him on the plane what salt tastes like.
“After several attempts, of course, he could not do it. He
could not convey, in words alone, so ordinary an experience as tasting salt. I
bore testimony to him once again and said, ‘I know there is a God. You
ridiculed that testimony and said that if I did know, I would be able to tell
you exactly how I know. My friend, spiritually speaking, I have tasted salt. I
am no more able to convey to you in words how this knowledge has come than you
are to tell me what salt tastes like. But I say to you again, there is a God!
He does live! And just because you don’t know, don’t try to tell me that I
don’t know, for I do!’
“As we parted, I heard him mutter, ‘I don’t need your
religion for a crutch! I don’t need it.’
“From that experience forward, I have never been embarrassed
or ashamed that I could not explain in words alone everything I know spiritually”
(“The Candle of the Lord,” 52).
